You know what it’s like.

You save up hard, sacrifice so much – just so that you can buy that new car.

And THEN what happens? You put a scratch or dent in the panel, or even worse – someone else does it to you.

From that moment on, where do your eyes immediately go – every time you look at your car? That’s right – straight to the dent.

Sometimes our relationships are like that too. They start off all shiney and new. We love the look of it, and the relationship feels good. Ah, isn’t the honey-moon period such fun.

But then, something happens that puts a dent, or a scratch into the relationship.  This may take a few months, years or even decades. And from that time onward, immediately you seem to focus upon that defect in the relationship. This eventually happens to all Christians, in their attitude towards the church, and often towards God.

The reality is, that the car still performs perfectly. Eveything still works as it did before. It’s just that in our human nature, we tend to focus on those things that annoy us. It’s been said that the obvious flaws we notice so much in others, are a reflection of what we despise about ourselves. 

All cars eventually get scratches in them, and so do relationships. 

What’s happened is that you’ve come to see the reality of the relationship. Before this, you were living in a distorted reality. Depression or disalusionment occurs when realty clashes with our view or expectation of reality. Reality isn’t going to change, so maybe our acceptance of reality needs to be the movable feature. 

It’s easier to wear slippers than it is to carpet the world.

Maybe it’s time to focus upon the good, instead of the negative. Maybe your expectations are too high and need to come into line with reality.

Maybe God wants to breathe His all consuming love and grace into your life, so that you see the 99.9% that is good.